Obama spokesman: Yes, he continued to work with Ayers after he found out about his past

posted at 5:05 pm on October 7, 2008 by Allahpundit

Simple question from a surprisingly dogged Mark Halperin: Does Obama consider it appropriate to associate professionally with an unrepentant terrorist or not? No answer from Gibbs, although in practice The One’s answer is clear enough: Of course he does. The “statute of limitations” had run, don’tcha know, which is why Axelrod now feels bold enough to admit, “No one is suggesting that he never knew.”

After you watch the clip, take a crack at this short BBC radio interview with Ayers from 2007. Exit quotation: “I don’t make any apology for it at all.”

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I hope 28 days is enough for most of the country to get very familiar with the piece of dung named William Ayers. I followed a link posted here last night and read a story about a lady named Donna Ron who had been forced by Ayers to have sex with his black roommate in 1965. This lady wrote the piece in January of 2006. No ulterior motives.

You can see how big of a problem a biased mainstream media is now. Because conservatives have known about the Ayers issue forever – but only now that CNN has done a report on it is the issue actually becoming relevant to the election.

I don’t think bringing up Ayers is really about just Ayers. It is part of a wider attempt to get it into the mind of the voter that there are things about this guy you don’t know about and he has not been vetted enough by the media. It gets them wondering if they really know this guy.

If McCain wants to win the election, he has got to hammer Obama on this Ayers issue.

Another thing:

PLEASE bring the following up and Virginia will be a McCain victory for sure:

WASHINGTON – A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Tuesday to immediately free 17 Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo Bay into the United States, rebuking the government in a landmark decision that could set the stage for the release of dozens other prisoners in Cuba.

From another article:

The most likely place for the men to live would be in Northern Virginia, where a Chinese Muslim association has found 17 families to take them, at least for the time being.

Hello, McCain? Do you want to win Virginia? Bring this up in tonight’s debate. Who is this judge that has order 17 terrorists to live in Virginia? Will Obama appoint more judges like him?

What makes this a truly sad statement of our times is that he feels confident enough to make that statement knowing that many will accept it. To have a presidential candidate consorting with known terrorists who sought and still seek the destruction of this society…

“After the extensive disclosures about your long and close working and political relationship with Bill Ayers, an admitted and unrepentant domestic terrorist, why did you attempt to mislead America by saying that Bill Ayers was ‘just a guy in my neighborhood’?”

And if you intentionally mislead the American people on a simple issue like this, why should they ever trust you on really important issues, like national security?

I agree with Spirit that either Ayers is a problem or not. But, I think the rub here for Barry is that it shows once again that he is a liar and it brings up the smarminess that Hillary did a pretty good job in bringing out. The problem for Hillary was more Obama’s team did a much better job of understanding the mechanics of the delegate system then Clinton.

If McCain can make the Ayers connection as part of Obama’s overall problem with the truth, that will make people think. If he goes down the path of labeling Ayers an unrepentant terrorist and Obama as a liberal who loves terroriste, it won’t go anywhere.

The key is to beat him over the head on credibility and then kick him in the throat on the tax and spend issues.

THE PROBLEM with Ayers The point that needs to be made about Ayers is that he, Rev. Wright, Rev. James Meeks, Rashid Khalidi, Raila Odinga, ACORN, Rezko, Frank Marshall Davis etc… They are among the most radical people/organizations imaginable. The President of the USA is a person AND a symbol of our Country and its character. Further, Obama’s judgement in associating with these kinds of people….KNOWINGLY, is a problem and not a small one! If elected, Obama will be OUR President; ideology aside, he will respresent us ALL.

That is what makes McCain/Palin vs Obama/Biden and easy choice!! A genuine hero and a average American women or a virtual unknown and highly suspect Chicago politican and a known liar/plagarist….Its an easy choice and I think that most people in America are lined up with the first choice!

Another thing that we can take from a man/women’s association is the kind of people that he would appoint!!

This is easy….and it is a BIG DEAL that needs to be HAMMERED HOME!!

Swift Boat my ass!!…..those issues with the Swifty’s like these with Ayers, were called “attacks”. They were relevant in the same sort of way, they were TRUE! The Swift Boat Vets for Truth worked and so will bringing up these ties to this unrepentant terrorist!

How is it that we have come to a place where A MANS OWN WORDS used against him to make a point are an attack?? ITS BS!

Ayers has been a known entity in Obaco’s history since he started campaigning and we are only now getting more scrutiny. What else is there that could, should and would be known if he were a Republican?

This is akin to Obama saying he was not aware of Bill Ayers background while sitting in his living room.

As anyone from Chicago in knew, and that neighborhood in particular, Ayers and Dohrn are its most famous couple. The mad bombers, living in plain site, raising two kids and then escaping long prison terms on a technicality. They were stars. Everyone knows their stories. To some they are cult heroes.

Yet Obama says he did not know! Sure.

The cover up is always worse that the crime….Here’s another canard that needs to be put to rest. The left is dismissing all of this by attempting to say it was forty years ago. It was not. It was only 14 before Obama sat in that living room.

…..”The couple turned themselves in to authorities in 1980. Ayers and Dohrn later became legal guardians to the son of Weathermen David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin after the boy’s parents were convicted and sent to prison for their part in the Brinks Robbery of 1981″…….

It was that heist that killed three people. Fourteen years later Obama sat in Ayers living room and had his political career launched. Obama knew those Ayers children. He knew all the parents and their background histories. He approved.

Obama also knew this,

……..”Back in the early eighties, in an interview with David Horowitz and Peter Collier, Bill Ayers remembered his reaction upon learning that he would not be prosecuted by the government for his bombing spree as a member of the Weather Underground. “Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,” he exulted.”…….

And this,

…….”at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”…….

Good God. Anyone read the comments to that Politico story?
MrSteve on October 7, 2008 at 5:30 PM

Really something, aren’t they? The very first comment set the tone; Obarfo followers don’t care, don’t want to hear it and will blow it all off.

We better pray Mac gets elected because these Obaminations will have plans for the rest of us and will expect him to carry them out. You think the Fairness Doctrine is heinous, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

You are McCain you basically say: Barack Obama has betrayed you on his promise to take public financing. How can you trust him to not raise your taxes? How can you take him at his word? He has written two memoirs, yet a couple of weeks ago admitted his previously undisclosed desire to join the military. What else don’t you know about Senator Obama? He lists his presidential campaign as experience. Maybe his campaign manager and speechwriter David Axelrod should run for president instead. Barack Obama is untrustworthy, unknown, and unready to lead.

Thanks Silverstar, very funny. As for Ayers, Dohrn Khalidi and other anti american friends of Obama the more publicizing the better. Look for how many times Obama says, “As I’ve always said…”, it’s the tipoff (like Biden’s wide grin and enthusiasm) that a great lie is going on.

Question for our military readers- My friend who’s in the nat’l guard said that just by the things Obama has admitted to and associations he’s had in the past he wouldn’t be able to have security clearance as a soldier. Is that true? If so, why would we let him know about all our most classified everything?

“Barack Obama appears to sit on a nexus between Marxist revolutionary activists, unrepentant former terrorists, Black Power racists, Chicago mobsters – oh, and a Saudi who is trying to buy up America. If you were to turn up at US immigration control with a background of such associates, it’s a fair bet they wouldn’t let you off the air-bridge. Yet this man may well become President of the US! If any other candidate had had merely a fleeting relationship with William Ayers, his candidacy would have been terminated before it was even articulated — let alone what we now know about Obama’s key role in Ayers’s CAC and its funding of radical groups; let alone the fact that Obama had been mentored during his formative years by a Communist Party plant; let alone his work for organizations modeled on the seditious philosophy of Saul Alinsky; let alone his two-decade membership of a Black Power church; let alone his relationship with fraudster Tony Rezko. And yet despite all of this, virtually no-one in the mainstream media is asking any questions. Has there ever been a more staggering, surreal and scary race to the White House?”

I’ve got “Dreams of My Father” at home right now. My daughter asked me why I was frowning when I read it. I told her it reminded me of Carson Clay from “Mr Bean’s Holiday”.

“Nothing….. nothing….. nothing”

And it does sound like the excerpts from “Fugitive Days”.

The thing about “Dreams” is that it hops in and out of tenses, reality and dream, chronology, etc. “Nuanced”, like we have to care enough to analyze every word that falls from his mouth just to figure out which decade he’s talking about. And he says almost nothing about what he really did – especially at Columbia University. It’s drivel very much like the narcissistic, self-analytical Carson Clay from “Mr Bean’s Holiday”.

The Obama/Ayers point that is being missed or ignored:
Without left-wing radical, former terrorist Bill Ayers there probably would not be a Barack Obama in politics.

- Bill Ayers helped launch Obama into Chicago politics; It was Ayers that in 1995 had “a coffee” in his house to introduce Obama as the new person running for office in Chicago politics.

- Prior to that Ayers had Obama named to the Chicago Annenberg Project board to oversee the distribution of grants in Chicago.

Later between 2000 and 2002, Ayers helped select Obama for the Wood Fund of Chicago. Ayers had been on the Board of Directors since 1999.
Ayers put Obama on those boards so Obama could use the money and power to purchase influence, be very visible and make a name for himself in Chicago.

Again, without left-wing radical, former terrorist Ayers there probably would be no Obama in politics.
Ayers (and his associates) selected and groomed Obama for political office.
———–And didn’t Obama know Ayers before then…in 1987?
In 1987 there was a push for school reform in Chicago. Thomas Ayers was a leader of the ABCs Coalition which was coordinated by his son, Bill Ayers. One member of the coalition was the Developing Communities Project, headed up by Barack Obama before he left for Harvard.

At the beginning of his campaign when Obama was criticized for having no experience he said yes, “but I you can trust my judgement”. He had superior judgement! One by one these people from his past have come to the surface and been thrown under the bus (including his typical white grandmother). C’mom libs! Absent experience AND judgement there is NOTHING! He is a figment of your imagination. A dangerous figment of your imagination!

Aside from the double-talk (do his goons get a bonus for being obnoxious?), it’s important to point our that Ayers (who’s equally obnoxious) hasn’t changed his attitude, only his tactics.

Like this little ditty:

…at a November 2006 education forum in Caracas, Venezuela, with President Hugo Chávez at his side, Ayers proclaimed his support for “the profound educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chávez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.” Ayers concluded his speech by declaring that “Venezuela is poised to offer the world a new model of education—a humanizing and revolutionary model whose twin missions are enlightenment and liberation,” and then, as in days of old, raised his fist and chanted: “Viva Presidente Chávez! Viva la Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta la Victoria Siempre!”

I don’t see any but the dumbest (or leftist) American parents lining up to register their kids for the revolution in the classroom, Caracas-style.

One of the questions they ask for your security clearance (if i recall correctly) is if you’ve ever been part of a group that’s worked against the USA. They also ask all your references that question, about your associates etc stuff like that. Given what we in the blogosphere know about his past I think it’s safe to say he’d have problems getting a clearane if he was applying for an FBI job rather than LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD.

Serious question, is this really happening or are we in some sort of Truman Show-like movie?

A lot of that from the obama camp, they admit NOTHING unless it’s on video or someone has recorded a conversation and if lucky a picture forgot, WE have pictures of obama in muslim clothing, yet the media blows it off.

I saw that buffoon in his interview, and he didn’t even try to make it look legitimate to defend Obama regarding Ayers! No one is going to care about the Ayers connection! The American people are going to punish McCain because of that idiot Bush. God help me for abandoning Bush, but we’re going to get stuck with that freak of nature Obama as our president because Bush was such a tremendous failure in these last two years. I’m just astounded that so many people are willing to throw us all off a cliff, but it appears they are.

Serious question, is this really happening or are we in some sort of Truman Show-like movie?

hump1201 on October 7, 2008 at 6:28 PM

It’s happening. And my guess is, there are thousands upon thousands who are frightened by what they are witnessing here. Unfortunately, that ain’t enough.

What I’m coming to find out is that most Americans just don’t really pay attention. They’re bored with hearing about one particular party, so time for a change they say! They don’t understand what caused the bailout; they don’t understand Obama has a miniscule record; they don’t understand that Obama is extremely liberal.

Why should they worry? After all, none of the “mainstream media” outlets tells them to worry. They are virtually clueless of Wright, Ayers, or Rezco. They cannot name one accomplishment that Obama has actually achieved in his career; they don’t even know necessarily what it is that Obama stands for (shockingly, I have a co-worker, an Obama supporter, who argued with me yesterday that Obama did NOT support nationalized health-care….I ain’t kidding).

I liken what’s happening to the way Americans treat the NFL. Take for example last season; the New England Patriots were the dominant team, blowing out every opponent. The Patriots weren’t just the team to beat, they’d been the team to beat for 7 long years. And casual fans were getting tired of it. Time for a change, time for somebody to knock those guys off their high horse. That’s how I think too many Americans view this election.
From what I see, all they know, is they want something different. They’re tired of the same team winning.

The absolute moral authority of Bill Ayers in that radio clip is absolutely nauseating.

Anyhoo, as a further test of Barry’s truthfulness, Mark Halperin may want to quiz Team Obama about another one of Barry’s Bundlers, Marilyn Katz:

Unlike some of her more infamous counterparts like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn—who are in self-imposed exile until November 5—Katz is deeply, and officially, involved in Obama’s presidential campaign.

In 1969, an undercover policeman named William Frapolly took the stand at the infamous “Chicago Seven” trials. Prosecutors asked him to describe his collaboration with organizers of the violent protests that roiled the previous year’s Democratic National Convention. Frapolly testified that on one chaotic night in Lincoln Park, Ms. Katz briefed a group of protesters on a new addition to their arsenal of anarchy: Guerrilla nails…

Palin needs to open up a multi front war on Obama by going after all of these associations. Keep on Ayers and then just run the table. The press will have to respond in defense of Obama but it gets it out in the public.

On the eve of a Presidential election, ACORN is again in the news for voter fraud and other forms of chicanery. This is a huge deal given Obama’s long and intimate association with the organization.

Palin needs to address this in a full frontal attack and force Obama to defend his association with this organization.

Here is a major question for Obama:

Q: Who is mike klonsky and why did the the CAC giving money to him rather than grants to raise math scores.

A: mike klonsky is a colleague of Bill Ayers at the University of Illinois school of education who also happened to be a fellow SDS radical, weatherman and “education reformer” oh, and did I forget to mention he also happens to be a hardcore marxist-leninist who co founded a communist political party here in the US?

Klonsky also wrote a blog on Obama’s website until it was made to disappear.

However, it must be pointed out that a notorious ally of Bill Ayers for many years, Mike Klonsky, is an open member of the Obama campaign. Klonsky runs a blog on the official Obama website Here where he claims to be a “professor of education” (the website of the Small Schools Workshop that he directs says only that he teaches some graduate courses, though it appears he was a visiting professor for one year at Nova Southeastern University in Florida in 2006-07) and says he blogs for Obama on “education politics and teaching for social justice.”

Who is Mike Klonsky? Well, on one level, he might just appear to be a protege of Bill Ayers in the education world. He received, as I detail below, a $175,000 grant from the Ayers/Obama-led Annenberg Challenge to run the Small Schools Workshop that he and Ayers started in Chicago to push their school reform agenda.

But that is only half the story. Klonsky was one of the most destructive hardline maoists in the SDS in the late 60’s who emerged from SDS to form a pro-Chinese sect called the October League that later became the Beijing-recognized Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). As chairman of the party, Klonsky travelled to Beijing itself in 1977 and, literally, toasted the Chinese stalinist leadership who, in turn, “hailed the formation of the CP(ML) as ‘reflecting the aspirations of the proletariat and working people,’ effectively recognizing the group as the all-but-official US Maoist party.” (Elbaum, Revolution in the Air, 228).

I know of no indications that Klonsky has ever expressed any regrets about that activity. Perhaps like his SDS comrade, Ayers, he, too, thinks he did not do enough back then. In my view they did more than enough.

An excellent profile of that maoist milieu is available in a book called Revolution in the Air by Max Elbaum, a first hand participant whose sympathy for the maoism of the period does not get in the way of an excellent account of these idiot savants of the left.

How is it possible that someone of Klonsky’s ilk would now be playing a visible role in the Obama campaign itself on such an important issue as education policy – apparently with free reign to push his authoritarian “social justice” agenda?

Mental gymnastics. This is how personal responsibility vanishes. Ayers is unrepentant and Obama has no problem with that, because Obama was 8 years old when Ayers did what he did, as if that means anything at all.

How old was Obama when the Keating 5 thing happened, for which his opponent DID apologize, and which forever after changed how McCain viewed the corrupting influence of lobbyists?

Obama is willing to forgive Ayers for an evil Ayers doesn’t regret for a minute doing, and yet is unwilling to forgive McCain for a far more minor evil (how many people died as a result of Keating 5?) for which McCain has shown by both word and deed that he is sorry.